War is hell, and now war is hell with giant chicken legged mech suits piloted by die hard mercenaries with nothing left to lose.
You're in WWIII, and you're a hired guy in the largest organization of mercs in the world, Raizakel. So to put it easily, you're a soilder in every one's army. With the introduction of mech suits to the war, the rules have apparently changed and not for the better. With waves of destruction in the paths of the mechs, people go to enlist to, well, drive mechs. Ridiculous, I know.
Anyway, the game isn't really that fantastic on story line to begin with. It feels tacked on for the sake of having a single player campaign. A new approach, though, is that you can take on different roles, such as Scout, Solider, Sniper, Defender, etc., and play through the story as such, giving you different, yet the same, story arcs to play through. No matter what role you play, though, the story is boring and uninspiring.
The soundtrack doesn't help much either to put you into a sort of...zone.The music is there...but who cares with these tracks? They're generic and a dime a dozen, but you didn't buy the game for the sound, now did you?
Graphically this game is beautiful. Crisp and clean metal on your mechs let you appreciate the vast majority of different looking mechs you can have. Sheer limitless combinations of mechs for you to assemble, and trust me, you can assemble them however you like, within reason. You gain new parts for your dream mech by playing through the single and multiplayer missions.
Multiplayer...ah multiplayer. It's a pain in the ass to get through, let me tell you. You have to join a squad, be accepted into it, or make your own and be a one man punching bag, to play in the key element of Chromehounds: the war multiplayer. You literally get to set yourself into the seat of a mech in the war while you fight with your squadron on the side of whichever of the three countries you want to represent. I sadly never got a chance to play through that part of the game, as it was way too beauricratical to try and make it into the war, and when it takes 10 minutes of my time and I haven't played a game yet, I lose all interest. There is free play as well, but it managed to elude me as well with more option screens and unclear direction.
Control wise, it's fine. A bit sluggish and the aim system is a bit off. You have a box in the top right of your screen to show where you're aiming, or you can take to a first person perspective and try to aim with all the shakes and rattles of being in a mech. Either way, it's disorienting and unenganging.
Gameplay, it's bland and simple. Start mission, do mission, finish mission, repeat. The mechanics of what you have to do are sometimes unclear, and within 5 minutes you could lose the mission just because the Russian aid on your com link will only talk to you to tell you what a bad job you're doing.
The game isn't bad, persay, it's just...not for everyone, and definatly not for most. If you played Mech Assault and wanted more from it, but not the huge complexity of Steel Batlion, Chromehounds may just be the game for you; assuming you're into keeping track of everything to the point that it becomes your life - keeping up to date every hour on the hour about how the war is going on your side. The game isn't bad, it just takes itself as a great game.
If you have the paitience and A LOT of interest in mech games and want to see a new approach to single player and multiplayer gameplay (if only a little bit in change) and are willing to go through all the option screen swarm nonesense, pick up Chromehounds. Otherwise, avoid and just wait till everyone stops talking about it.
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